Ancienne Belgique

9:30 pm - CAROLINA CHOCOLATE DROPS Early American Music! Roots! 'Afro-American String band'! 'Heritage! Genuine Negro Jig'! Those last two cries are also the titles of their two brilliant CDs. Caroli...

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9:30 pm - CAROLINA CHOCOLATE DROPS

Early American Music! Roots! 'Afro-American String band'! 'Heritage! Genuine Negro Jig'! Those last two cries are also the titles of their two brilliant CDs.
Carolina Chocolate Drops is a black North American threesome that you should already know from their extremely original single 'Hit 'Em Up Style'. Behind the band name you will find Dom Flemons (mostly guitar), Rhiannon Giddens (mostly banjo), and Justin Robinson (mostly fiddle.) But the trio exchange instruments at the drop of a hat or throw in some vigorous vocals or perfect percussion (if need be with 'bones' or a 'computer hard drive triangle'.)
Energetic and educational! Even the packaging appears authentic: with clothes 'from before the war' but, especially, always with plenty of explanation about the songs that they serve and take on. Alan Lomax would certainly have been extremely appreciative of Carolina Chocolate Drops. But the same can be said of the audience at Dranouter this summer!
Genuine Negro Jig is out on the Nonesuch label (via Warner) and was produced by Joe Henry! De Standaard reported at the time: '3/4... eerlijk als goud... klasse.' Les inrocks too: 'Retro mais pas trop'. Top roots!

8:00 pm - RYAN BINGHAM & THE DEAD HORSES

Tight, top-shelf, Americana country-rock ! 'Junky Star' will already be Ryan Bingham's third CD - on the Lost Highway label via Universal - and was produced by the ever spot-on T Bone Burnett. Cinephile music lovers know Ryan Bingham from 'The Weary Kind', which was another (milder) T Bone Burnett production and an Oscar winner from the soundtrack to Crazy Heart (yep, that consummate 'country film' with Jeff Bridges!).
So from now on it's really Ryan Bingham & The Dead Horses. Another interesting detail too: apparently Ryan once had a career as rodeo-rider!? Britain's Uncut already wrote of 'Junky Star': '...songs that veer from rainy-day Dylan to Steve Earle and the border-town blues of Terry Allen.' To throw in that other Q magazine at the same time too: 'With the worn, leathery tones and skewed romanticism of an ageing drifter who's seen only hard times, he's anything but starry-eyed on this dour collection of no-frills Americana'. So it is too! So if neither The Felice, nor The Avett Brothers make it here to see us then we'll be just as highly honoured with the husky songs of Ryan Bingham and his Dead Horses!

Watch te video here.

7:15 - pm LIAM GERNER